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Day 6- Rad Rotation Day 2!

Posted: Wed, Aug 3, 2016

Location:Vixen Point, Gorda SoundAuthor:Spencer L. Today was our second rotation day and an amazing one! After a great cereal breakfast, we started learning to navigate the complex RDP tables for dive planning. Once we all had a grip on the convoluted path from one graph to another, we headed to the mangroves to snorkel. It was amazing to explore this new and unique habitat. Timid juvenile grunt fish and snapper hid in the forest of mangrove roots, while barracuda waited for prey in the shallows. We even saw cleaner shrimp and (one of my favorites) upside down jellyfish. Once we had returned and eaten lunch, we moved onto watersports, pausing to watch a baby reef shark cruise by the beach. While some windsurfed or skied, I and a few others sailed Picos. The tiny, light boats flew across the water and tipped with gusts of wind! We then moved on to sailing the 19ft Rhodes. We each participated in operating the sails and recovering a fender in man overboard drills. Later, as the wind rose, we all laughed as the boat heeled and someone tried to loosen the sail to compensate. After showers back at our boat, we excitedly boarded dinghies to get to the beach BBQ!